Productivity Tooling

Transforming Workflow Automation for a Leading Bookkeeping Provider

COMPANY

Bench Accounting

My Focus

System Design
Service Design
UX/UI Design

Team

Renee N. - Product Design
Cher M. - Staff Engineer
Vijay B. - Product Manager
Rob D. - Lead Accountant

YEAR

2024

Bench Accounting was the largest bookkeeping provider for small businesses in the US. They had a team of 500+ bookkeepers but no way of systematically telling each bookkeeper what needs to be done for each client. Bookkeepers relied on a legacy bespoke dashboard—designed based on outdated operational processes—to interpret client needs on any given day.

Bench needed a scalable, internal-facing system to transform their complex, unstructured tasks that leaders couldn't track. I led the digital transformation of Bench into a system that automatically populated tasks for each bookkeeper with a clear understanding of what that needs to be done.

Role

As sole product designer, I ran the user research, collaborated with the Staff Engineer to define the back-end architecture of the new workflow management platform, merged our latest design system with legacy UX/UI designs to ensure a low friction process change user experience, and prototyped new features as the platform integration grew.

Research Led Design

Bookkeeping is more than matching receipts to the bank transactions - tasks include payroll, loans, merchant fees, and many more to deliver accurate income and expense resorts to clients. It was crucial I immersed myself into this space of complex bookkeeping. I reviewed internal documentation and conducted workshops to help immerse me in the bookkeeping practices. From there I ran observational research studies and discovery sessions with bookkeepers to understand how and when they completed complex bookkeeping tasks. These methods enabled me to identify pain points and uncover opportunities for a system that could guide bookkeepers more effectively.

Scalable Product Design

I collaborated with the Director of Engineering to validate the patterns within the complex bookkeeping workflows that can be supported with existing systems in the Bench ecosystem. I then delivered a series of designs of the workflow management vision and how it’ll impact other systems that provided a foundation for roadmap planning. From there I designed the feature in phases so updates could be shipped promptly and not rely on needing all of the Bench ecosystem to update at the same time. This also helps my team ensure all the possible scenarios that could be covered were covered and address any gaps.

Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.
Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.
Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.
Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.

Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.
Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.
Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.
Reduced 20,680 tasks to only 85
Before this project Bench had 20,680 different sets of tasks; many duplicates with different labels, inconsistency in naming, and vague task names. After I mapped out Bench’s most frequent adjustments to check for scalability of the patterns, I worked with the lead accountant to reduce the adjustment task types to 85.
Help Prioritize Roadmap
To help communicate to wider audience across Bench, I created multiple service blueprints focusing on different actions. These smaller ones allowed my team to inspect the problems deeper and iterate faster. It also allowed me to have more engaging conversations with non-engineers and product as they were easier to consume.
Early Vision Workshop
To align on what this new workflow system should do and would be able to do, I facilitated a workshop with engineering leads and bookkeeping SMEs.

Impact for Users and Business

I was able to improved quality of life of internal users while meeting business metrics of reducing time to completion. Unexpectedly the number of tasks generated each month increased after our roll out. We found out that previous task creation system had more gaps than we initially expected. This increase, while unexpected, allows us now to track a more realistic view of what is happening each month.

Increased Efficiency

Time to task completion decreased by 50%. (Only 10 days from 20 days!)

Positive User Feedback

High user satisfaction ratings and positive reviews highlight the consistency and explicitness of the new task descriptions. Allowed internal users to reduce mental fatigue of trying to figure out what is requested of them.

Scalable Implementation

This project also helped setup the foundation for Bench:

Ability as organization to identify tasks to distribute to off-short workforce
Ability for organization and individual to accurately estimate the level of manual calculation required to complete work for an individual client
Ability to identify and prioritize clients who need more or less manual calculations to complete monthly bookkeeping for
Ability as organization to forecast capacity each team will need to complete the number of tasks at required turnaround time

Redesigned Architecture for Greater Clarity and Efficiency

Previously, critical details were hidden behind horizontal scrolling and truncated columns, leaving users unsure of what was required. By introducing a (1) vertical drawer with a reorganized information architecture—grounded in bookkeeping best practices and user feedback—I made essential data instantly accessible. I also added clearer (2) task instructions and provided (3) optional educational resources for those who needed extra guidance. As a result, users can quickly understand what’s needed, reducing confusion and minimizing their reliance on other bookkeeper’s help.